What's your favorite iPod ready deck?

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Yeah, you're not the first person to tell me that, E. I'll have to check out that Panasonic. Honestly, I feel that I'd rather control my music through my iPod, but I've never experienced navigating an iPod through a CD player that wasn't a touch screen.
 
I know it's a little outdated, but the Harman/Kardon Drive & Play system is a really good integration. The old one's have been long replaced and updated, but still work good. The new ones are nice though--check them out.

I had one of the old ones, hooked up to a Pioneer deck. I was more than happy with it.

A buddy has the Alpine EX-10. He swears by it for bluetooth and iPod integration with his deck. You can pick those up for pretty cheap, too. I've seen them online for less than $50 new...
 
You could always use Aux-in; which many HUs have, if you want to use the iPod control itself.
 
i have some jensen DVD LCD unit that is iPod ready, works great.
 
You could always use Aux-in; which many HUs have, if you want to use the iPod control itself.

This ^

i guess i just don't understand the need or want for controlling the ipod through the hu. i'd much rather just hook it up to the aux-in and be done with it.
 
I suppose I'd rather control it through the iPod, but I want it to be able to charge whilst playing without infinity billion cables everywhere.
 
I did something like that; just have one extension cable go to a dock or something with USB and a line-out jack; with the dock tucked away somewhere and just that single extension cable out.
 
And with aux inputs.....no charging either.

I have a pioneer from 2 years ago. Many of the pioneer decks have a USB port. You need a USB to Ipod plug but they're not hard to find. It will charge the ipod too. Some of the high models have 3 lines of information (artist/song/album) but mine is cheaper (got it for $225 new) and you can only look at one at a time. You can still search by a variety of ways (genre/artist/etc) but (depending how many songs you have) the alphabet search can take a while to.....umm....load. Not sure how other company's head units compare in terms of efficiency and such. I've always been a Alpine man though.....jumped over the tracks on this last purchase.
 
And with aux inputs.....no charging either.

Not true, at all. Just more work. Sendstation and maybe some other companies have small line-out adapter that also have USB output(which means you can have a mini-USB charger hooked up to it at the same time). I believe there's also a BMW-specific cable that's just a line-out/usb combo cable that plugged directly into the iPod(no "adpater" per say).

How I have mine is extension cable from my iPod Nano to an old 1g Nano dock I had laying around(has line-out and the 30-pin dock connector); line-out to Aux-in and iPod charger to the dock port. Dock is tucked away behind the console with just the extension cable coming out. Though; only reason I went with this method is because the HU iPod function isn't working(says "No iPod" even though it's hooked up correctly and Panasonic screen shows on the iPod); but this could be due to it being an old HU(worked fine with my old 1G Nano).
 
Depends on the brand; but on my Panasonic it looked pretty similar to the Zune setup with the categories on top across the screen, and under it the list of whatever category selected.

Pioneer was a BITCH especially if you have a lot of songs; you'd have to select the category and go through the whole list(usually in alphabetical order). Hard to describe but I can tell you the Panasonic was much more easier to navigate with.

I haven't purchased the iPod interface for my JVC(not even hooked up either); but from what I've seen the newer JVC units allow you to control through the iPod and will display the info on the screen(pretty much what it seems you were looking for).
 
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Aux In sucks. You have to remember to pause your ipod every time you stop somewhere. Then you have to take it out and charge it.

With an Ipod deck you control it like a very huge CD. And you can tuck the ipod away and forget it until you want to add songs to it.

Just so you know, I have an Ipod deck in one car and an Aux In in the other.

I like Alpine and Pioneer right around the $300 range.

Don't get ipod "ready" cuz then you have to buy an adapter. Get one that comes with the cable.
 
Some do not require an adapter but rather use the USB port(so you'd use your regular iPod USB cable). Not sure if those are "Ready" ones or not; but Crutchfield is a good place to browse around, and Sonicelectronix has a lot of good pics of different units(if you're concerned about what's included, etc.).
 
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